


Invitation to the Dance I thru V

by JiM



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-09-30
Updated: 1999-09-30
Packaged: 2018-11-20 06:59:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11330814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JiM/pseuds/JiM
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Invitation to the Dance I thru V

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Invitation to the Dance by JiM

Title: "Invitation to the Dance"  
Author: JiM  
Date: 4/99  
Note: For Anne, who can always be counted on to offer an intriguing  
opinion.  
Archive: X/, slash X, all others, please ask.  
Feedback:   
Web page: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Metro/4859/JiM.html (Thanks to the talented Mona!)

* * *

The slip of paper had been placed perfectly in the center of the pale trapezoid of light from the transom. It mocked Mulder with its very innocuousness, the neat lettering on it whispering of mysteries that he did not want to know any more.

No one had ever accused Fox Mulder of being stupid. Or forgetful. He did not bend down to pick it up. He did not turn on the light.

Instead, he closed the door and leaned against it, waiting for the shadows in his apartment to flicker and run like heated oils. A watcher might almost have imagined that he was listening to the silence, testing its depths.

After a moment, he slid a hand into his coat and pulled out his weapon. One slight movement, and the clip dropped out; he did not bother to catch it as it fell to the floor. A sharp motion, and the round in the chamber was spit onto the floor to roll uselessly at his feet. Then he tossed the gun into the darkness; it slid into the sharp-edged frame of light next to the note.

He stood and listened to the shadows again. There was no sound, but he sighed, as if answering a child's whining plaint. Then he reached down and slid the small .25 out of his ankle holster, placed it on the floor and kicked it over to join its mate. When it had skittered to a halt, the apartment was silent again.

After a time, Mulder spoke to the darkness. "What do you want?"

"What I've always wanted, Mulder. Only now I want more of it."

The voice was so low and so close that he wondered why Krycek's breath didn't sear him, why his voice didn't leave him raw and bleeding.

"I don't want to play any more, Krycek. If you have information, I don't care. If you want me to go rescue another alien resistance fighter, I'll pass." He stared straight ahead into the gloom, wishing vaguely that it would take on any other shape than the one that was slowly solidifying before his eyes. "I think," he said reflectively, "that I just don't give a shit anymore."

"That's not true," Krycek said from somewhere beyond the rectangle of light. But his voice rippled with uncertainty.

"What would you know about the truth, Krycek?"

"I know enough, Mulder. I know there is no such thing as the 'Truth'. You've spent your life looking for something that doesn't exist."

"Because you, and people like you, keep murdering it." Said without heat, the words dropped like ice into a dark pool.

"That's one truth," Krycek admitted slowly.

Mulder took a deep breath and let his head fall back against the door. "Just speak your lines and get out, Krycek. I'm tired and not much in the mood to play this scene again."

"Pick up the paper."

Mulder didn't move. "Not this time, Krycek. A few more visits from you and I'll be asking for the name of Muhammad Ali's neurologist."

"I was just evening the account, Mulder." But a pale hand came out of the darkness and picked up the paper, leaving the guns.

"Yeah? So which arm do you want? Or would you rather have a leg? I'm sort of fond of running, but I've been getting shin splints lately anyway." The mordant tone set the shadows to rustling and the darkness became so brittle that Mulder wondered why it did not shatter at the whisper of Krycek's approach.

"That wasn't your fault, Mulder," Krycek sounded bewildered, standing in front of him suddenly, inches away. Mulder just shook his head, eyes focused on nothing.

"Mulder, we don't have time for this."

"I'm not the one on a schedule here, Krycek. If you want to hurry things along, why don't you just hit me a couple of times, shove a gun in my face, mutter something improbable, kiss me and get out?"

"I don't like to be so predictable," Krycek murmured, breath ghosting across Mulder's face.

"Yeah, I can see how that would get to be a big problem in your line of work," Mulder said, just before Krycek's lips touched his. Mulder's head jerked backward, thumping into the door. Krycek's mouth was warm and shockingly gentle as his lips moved over Mulder's. Pulling back a little, Krycek said nothing. Mulder could see nothing but shadows and sparks in his eyes. Then Krycek's hand was on his cheek, the paper crackling a little against his evening beard.

"There's gonna be a party tonight, Mulder. This is your engraved invitation. Dress is ... casual, but bring those," he jerked his head back toward the hardware lying on the floor.

"Can I bring a date?"

"Nope. We're both going stag tonight." Krycek tucked the slip of paper into the pocket of Mulder's coat, then looked at him again, for a long moment. He murmured something liquid in Russian. The unknown words flowed across Mulder's face and he licked his lips, trying to capture their meaning. Krycek leaned in again, brushing his lips across Mulder's mouth in a long, slow caress.

Then he was gone.

* * * 

Feedback cheerfully asked for at: 

 

* * *

 

Title: "Lobster Quadrille"  
Author: JiM  
Feedback addy:   
Date: 4/99  
Pairing: M/K, X files.  
Sequel: this is the sequel to "Invitation to the Dance"  
Note: Thanks to those who requested a sequel - feedback does wonders!

* * *

"Lobster Quadrille"  
by JiM

The trapezoid of light was still there, in the middle of his foyer floor, when Mulder staggered back through his door. There was nothing lurking in it this time and he found himself vaguely disappointed. This deep in the night, there was a silted feel to the darkness, as if it were a river composed of rotting corpses and decayed summers. He dropped his head back against the door with a hollow thunk. Then remembered the last time he had heard that sound and quickly moved away.

Suddenly, there was too much darkness, he was choking with it. The after-images of the night's work burned at him from the shadows. Mulder switched on lamps as he moved through the apartment, banishing both the murk and the memory of too much light. But it did nothing for the scents that clung to him.

Smoke. Cordite. Roasted meat. Death. Ozone.

He ran the water in the shower as hot as he could stand it and stood beneath the spray for a long time, until the campfire and charnel house scent was gone from all but his memory. He soaped and rinsed himself with mechanical precision three times. Eventually, the water ran tepid. He rinsed the shampoo out of his hair a last time and turned the water off.

He stepped out of the shower onto the gritty ruin of his clothes. The silence billowed and crackled at him. The memory of other sounds tonight shrieked and gibbered, begged and screamed at him. He closed his eyes and concentrated very hard on not dropping to the floor in howling anguish.

The towel stroked over his chest four or five times before he truly felt it. When it moved purposefully down his abdomen, he felt enough animal curiosity to open his eyes. Some small part of his mind was able to tabulate the data, analyze it and present a rough working theory for testing. Alex Krycek appeared to be kneeling at his feet, painstakingly drying off his left leg. Most of Mulder's mind rejected the theory and demanded that the data be rechecked. By the time Krycek had carefully dried most of Mulder's right leg and flank, he was convinced. Alex Krycek, who ought to be a charred lump of smoking meat on some railway platform in rural Virginia, was kneeling in Mulder's bathroom, toweling him off.

"You're alive."

"Looks that way," Krycek said absently. His hand pressed on Mulder's hip until he turned. Mulder felt Krycek lurch to his feet, then his back twitched like a horse's skin as Krycek patted the water away with gentle thoroughness. The toweled hand slid over his buttocks with impersonal care, then trailed up his spine to wipe away the water that dripped from the hair at the nape of his neck.

The world shuddered and slipped from side to side as his hair was scrubbed damp-dry. He leaned back against the shoulder he knew would be there, eyes closed and brain in that same curious state of neutral that he seemed to have entered from the first moment he had come home this evening and disarmed himself in the whispering darkness.

The steaming damp of the bathroom brought Krycek's scent to him. No longer the simple and seductive perfume of earth and leather, instead he was slick with the ashy scents of hatred and fear, diesel and gunpowder, and the stink of garbage and rivermud. Mulder turned his head away, holding his breath to deny the truth of what he had seen and done this night for one more moment. Krycek seemed to understand, and the towel rubbed across his face, swathing him again in the clean scents of soap and normalcy. Then he stepped back, leaving Mulder without even the dubious support of his shoulder.

Mulder stood for a moment, the air chilling around him, except for the heated mystery at his back. He could feel the tremors begin even as he steadied himself with a hand on the wall. /Shock/ he wondered, /Or terror?/Either was embarrassing in an agent of his tenure and a man with his own peculiar track record but he couldn't seem to work up enough fire to care what the hell Krycek thought of him now.

Krycek took hold of his shoulder and he was being steered into the unsolved mystery of his bedroom and its waterbed of unknown origin. Then he was being gently pushed and prodded into bed, the sheets warm and welcoming as he slid between them. He lay back, closed his eyes and let the world undulate around him for a moment. Then asked for the second time that night,

"What do you want?"

"A shower." Krycek's smoky voice hung in the air for long moments after the man himself had left the room. Mulder heard the water turn on and he lay and shivered and wondered about the ties that bound him to Krycek, to Scully, to the smoking dead who littered a rail-yard in rural Virginia tonight. He hummed a see-sawing nonsense tune from his childhood and wondered what they were going to do to stop what he had seen tonight.

The bed dipped beside him, the motion rocking him slowly, comfortingly. "What is that tune? You've been humming it all night," Krycek grumbled.

Mulder opened his eyes to see him seated on the side of the bed, looking newly minted. Everything about him, from his damp slicked back hair, to the forgotten beads of water slipping down his abdomen to soak into the towel knotted about his waist, to the scent of rain and green grass that rolled out from him, seemed fresh and simple -- except for the look in his eyes. His eyes were red-rimmed and smoke-tinged and still horrified. The truncated remnant of Krycek's left arm was far easier to face than the look in his eyes.

"I had to sing it back in high school chorus. 'The Lobster Quadrille' from Alice in Wonderland." Krycek blinked once, but his expression didn't change.

/Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you come and join the dance?//Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you come and join the dance?/

Krycek blinked again, then a sharp laugh was startled out of him. "Perfect," he said. "Come and join the dance, Mulder. It's heating up and I need a partner."

After what he'd seen tonight, after what Krycek had shown him, there was nothing to say. Mulder nodded, eyes closing again as the tremors came back stronger than before. He tried to hum the chorus again, but his breath came in jerky gasps and he fell silent. There was no other sound in the room except for Krycek's breath and the crackling shriek of blazingly fresh memories.

The waters beneath him rolled and swirled as Krycek insinuated himself beneath the covers. He lay unmoving beside Mulder, not touching him. When Mulder opened his eyes and stared straight up, he met Krycek's gaze in the mirrored mystery of his ceiling. When he closed his eyes, he still saw those eyes, agate hard, but no less horrified than his own.

When Mulder looked again, Krycek was asleep, silent and remote beside him. Mulder's tremors rocked Krycek's sleeping body. Alone again in the night, Mulder murmured over and over again,

/Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you come and join the dance?//Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you come and join the dance?/

But he knew the truth even as he reached over and curled one hand around Krycek's warm forearm. He already had.

* * *

Feedback cheerfully accepted at: 

 

* * *

 

Title: "Tango"  
Author: JiM  
Date: 5/99  
Note: This is #3 in the "Dance" series, following "Invitation to the Dance" and "Lobster Quadrille".  
Archive: X/, slash X, all others, please ask.  
Thanks: To Kass for argumentative and excellent beta.  
Feedback:   
Web page: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Metro/4859/JiM.html (Thanks to the talented Mona!)

* * *

"Tango"  
by JiM

Dawn was a sullen gray slab of light outside his window when Mulder woke. He lay on his side and stared at it for a time, thoughts flickering and burning out quickly, leaving no traces behind them. He listened to Krycek's sleeping breath behind him, taking a stupid animal comfort in its simple rhythm. He had no memory of dreaming, yet the very air around him hummed with fading echoes, whether of nightmares or memories, he couldn't say.

Six people had been reduced to blackened husks before his eyes because he couldn't, wouldn't believe what Krycek had told him. Because he had refused to see, even when his gut told him that Krycek was deadly serious this time. Six people. He held his hands up, looking for the ashy streaks that would mark his failure for all to see.

"Mulder. They'd all be dead if you hadn't been there. I couldn't have saved them by myself. I wouldn't have." Krycek's soft voice slipped over his shoulder like morning mist.

Mulder turned onto his back and looked over at Krycek. "Six people," he whispered.

"I know."

There was a bruise staining the pale skin over Krycek's right eye. Mulder let his fingertip trace the edges of the bruise slowly, feeling the heat of the wound. He pressed slightly, until Krycek winced, then he released the pressure and watched the whitened area flush with life again. "What are we going to do?" he asked.

"Stop them."

But Krycek sounded no more certain that he did. Mulder remembered seeing him flowing out of the night, coming up behind the faceless men with their burning rods. His stiletto had glimmered in the starlight and he had taken down the rearmost alien in perfect silence, his movements graceful and sure. Crouching among the bushes at the edge of the rail yards, under the harsh white shadow of the alien craft, Mulder had known what Krycek needed. The first woman had shrieked alight as Mulder began firing at the attackers, distracting them from the menace behind them.

.....The screams grew worse, the night brighter and more terrible as other people were set afire. Krycek killed yet another alien as the abductees howled and squealed, scattering like petty change thrown into the night. Greasy smoke made Mulder's eyes burn and run with tears. He met Krycek's gaze across the clearing, saw the glitter in his eyes, down his cheeks. Then Mulder began firing at the skirling, lurching flame-driven things that were ripping bright holes in the night. One by one, they fell, silent but for the crackling that coccooned them. Krycek killed another alien. Mulder killed another howling pillar of fire.....

Staring across his pillow, Mulder met Krycek's gaze again. His eyes were smoky and grave and Mulder knew then that he didn't want to remember either. But he did. They did.

Krycek was reaching for him even as Mulder lunged across the space between them. Krycek's previous kisses had been gentle, almost delicate. Now, the two men grappled and gnawed at one another. Their hands caressed and left bruises. Despair rose and was transformed into desperate appetite, a wild demand for the tastes and scents of someone living, the craving for the touch of someone, anyone, who would touch back.

Mulder tasted the salt and sweat of Krycek's shoulder and wondered if he were drinking the man's blood. Krycek's hand scored welts down his back and he welcomed the stinging. He was hard and aching and he ground his cock into Krycek's groin, grinning wildly at the ragged moan that tore from both their throats. Krycek's hand caught him by the back of the neck and dragged his

head down and he was gasping and gulping air from Krycek's mouth. The younger man's tongue thrust up into his mouth again and again, matching the savage rocking of his hips until the world shattered in frenzied pulsings.

They lay where their madness had dropped them, tangled and slumped together. Mulder's head was pillowed on Krycek's sweat-slick chest, his face turned away from the outrageous reality of Alex Krycek in his bed, covered with his sweat and semen. He drew a deep breath, ready to curse, rage, deny, *something*, when Krycek gently touched his hair. He was pierced to the core when the fingers of Krycek's remaining hand began to stroke through his soaked hair, soothing him with their mute concern. The breath groaned out of him, stealing his raging despair.

"Oh hell, Alex, now what?" he whispered to the pale skin beneath his cheek.

But he knew. And Krycek did, too. So they lay, silent and dazed, staring in their separate directions, waiting for daylight.

<Feedback always appreciated at >

 

* * *

 

Title: "Bransle"  
Author: JiM  
Date: 5/99  
Note: This is #4 in the "Dance" series, following "Invitation to the Dance", "Lobster Quadrille" and "Tango".  
Archive: X/, slash X, all others, please ask.  
Note: A "bransle" is a medieval country dance, usually danced in a circle, filled with simple repetitive figures. It is pronounced as "brawl".  
Thanks: To Kass, MJ and Dawn, who are patient, kind and grammatically well-hung. And to Vee, who first demanded a sequel to a rather short snip. I forgot the muffins AGAIN.  
Feedback:   
Web page: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Metro/4859/JiM.html (Thanks to the talented Mona!)

* * *

Mulder was floating, bobbing on the tide of Krycek's breath, drowsing on Krycek's chest, an arm wrapped around his ribs. Krycek's hand was on his head, thumb stroking small circles on his temple.

He was grateful for the deep green silence, reluctant to surface, to breach reality. So he kept his eyes closed and thought of nothing beyond the whisper of Alex Krycek's breath across his forehead and beneath his chest and beside his hand and the long slow ripples he could feel in the water bed beneath them. Suddenly, he could feel Alex stiffen.

"Hmmm?" he murmured into the moon-bright skin beneath his lips.

"Mulder, have you given any thought to what you're going to tell Scully and Skinner about us?" Krycek's voice was even and uninflected and made Mulder's skin crawl with icy reality.

"Why?"

"Because they're standing in the doorway."

Krycek's voice had an End of the World finality to it that Mulder had only heard in Japanese monster movies. He lifted his head to glare into Krycek's eyes, red-rimmed and wounded no longer. "Jesus, Krycek. If you're yanking my chain..."

"He's not, Mulder."

Skinner's voice was calm, controlled, even more uninflected than Krycek's and it rippled up Mulder's spine with a glacial rill. The silence that followed it reminded Mulder of that moment of perfect stillness after an atomic blast, that one tranquil moment just before the tearing wall of destruction arrives, when you can still see the doomed perfection of the landscape that will never be again.

He closed his eyes and said his last prayer.

Krycek was a stony silence beneath him. He felt Krycek take one deep breath and waited for the explosion of motion and violence that he knew was an inevitable part of the oncoming wave of destruction. Alex Krycek moved beneath him.

The warm brush, the light click of his lips against Mulder's forehead shattered the stillness. Someone's breath rasped in shock and Krycek smiled, a very small, very real smile. "Somehow, I don't think they're gonna offer me last cigarette."

"Get up," Skinner ordered. "We have to talk."

When Mulder gathered enough courage to look over his shoulder toward the doorway, Skinner and Scully were both gone. He could hear them talking softly and clinking noises as one of them, Scully probably, made coffee. Mulder dropped his forehead to Krycek's chest and was faintly comforted when Krycek's hand gathered him a little closer.

"Oh shit," Mulder murmured into Krycek's throat. "Lemme go talk to them. They're gonna be so intent on chewing my ass for the first ten minutes they won't even notice you're gone."

"And where am I going, Mulder?"

"This is a full service slum, Krycek. There's a perfectly good fire escape out that window."

The resounding silence made Mulder look up; he was shocked to see the frown of hurt on Krycek's face before his expression went flat and unbreachably null. Krycek shook his head and said, "No. They need to hear what we saw last night and we need to start making plans. Together."

Mulder blinked at him for a moment. "I take it back. You're not a coward. You're insane."

"Mulder!" Scully's voice was the hiss of the lit fuse.

Mulder grimaced. "Let's go, then. The auto da fe awaits."

Mulder dressed quickly, yanking on jeans and a t-shirt left draped over a chair. He silently tossed clean clothes in Krycek's general direction. The younger man was deftly fastening on his prosthetic and Mulder couldn't meet his eyes. "It'll take me a minute," Krycek said flatly. Mulder nodded and went to meet his fate.

Fate was standing in his living room, staring at his bookshelf and looking like a glacier about to calve. Mulder said nothing, just waited for the debacle. It came, with a slow, deep grinding growl, from deep in Skinner's chest before he spoke.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Agent Mulder?"

There was no answer to be made. So Mulder said nothing. His silence seemed to only enrage Skinner, who swung around and took two steps toward Mulder before stopping himself, fists clenched by his thighs.

"Well?" he demanded.

Suddenly, Mulder had had enough. Last night, he had been tired of all the bullshit and ready to shove it all, and that had been before Krycek had appeared with his "invitation". This morning, well, this morning he was centuries older. The sunlight in the room was golden and sparkling with dust motes and too pure to be seen by the same man who had washed human ash from his hair the night before. Skinner's outrage was pointless and Mulder had no energy to give to it. Scully's icy glare from the door of the kitchen gave him pause, but then he felt his reflexive guilt begin to wither as the ghost images of melting faces charred away all unnecessary emotion.

"Why are you here?"

"Because six people were found burned to death last night in a train yard in Paeonian Springs. Because the M.O. is the same as the Skyland Mountain "suicide". Because your melted cell phone was found at the scene at 4 a.m. this morning by sheriff's deputies. Because you didn't answer your phone and we thought..." Skinner's voice trailed off and he rubbed his hands over his face before standing up straighter and facing Mulder again.

"I don't know what I thought. Then I come here and you're snug in bed with *Alex Krycek*." Mulder could hear the hatred bubbling beneath Skinner's words, seething and looking for some crack in his self-control.

"What do you want, Skinner? Some sort of apology? Forget it." Mulder could smell coffee, a dark and whispering scent. He headed toward the kitchen, brushing past Scully and her outrage. He yanked four mugs out of the cabinet and thumped them onto the counter. He poured coffee into each mug, not caring how much he slopped around. Then he picked up two of the mugs and went back into the living room.

"Yours is on the counter," he told Skinner. An analytical part of his brain wondered why he was baiting the man; the answer slid into place even as he watched Skinner's jaw grinding. Because he was tired of always being rescued and thwarted, betrayed and manipulated and *right* every time. He was tired of being right and alone.

"Mulder...." Scully's voice was gentle, striving for the detachment she prized. "What were you doing in that train yard?"

"Trying to keep 30 abductees from being taken again or burned to death by the Resistance."

"And Krycek?"

"I took him there," Krycek said from the doorway. He was still barefoot and tousled, and he was wearing Mulder's jeans and a black t-shirt and Mulder wanted very badly to take him back to bed and pretend that they knew nothing about each other but their names. Instead, he crossed the room and handed Krycek a mug of coffee. He turned his back on Krycek's surprise and faced Skinner's towering anger again.

"So what happened?" Skinner was trying very hard to keep his temper. Mulder discovered that he still didn't give a damn.

"The abductees had gathered and were waiting at the railyard for a ship. When it got there, a second ship appeared. There were men, aliens - with their eyes and mouths sewn shut. They started through the crowd, touching people with some sort of rod. Anyone they touched, burst into flame. I started shooting at them, which is when Krycek showed up. Have ice pick, will travel, I guess." He was surprised to see the ripples in his coffee, then he realized that his hand was shaking. "I *did* try to call for back up," he said to Scully. She sighed and shook her head in resignation. "I guess that's how you found my phone. It got knocked out of my hand when one of the women caught...." he stopped, the night's sounds and smells swirling around him again.

Krycek spoke, his tone so neutral that Mulder knew the horror was still too close. "We killed three out of four of the Resistance fighters and managed to drive the rest of abductees away from the pick up site. I don't know what happened to the fourth alien, or the ship that came to pick up the abductees. The last I saw of Mulder, he was shoving people toward their cars and I was trying not to become a flambe."

"I thought you were dead." Mulder's voice split the sunlight, making the dust motes dance wildly.

Krycek's head jerked up at that and his eyes fixed on Mulder's. "I'm hard to kill."

"I thought you were working with the Resistance, Krycek." Scully's suspicion cut through them like iron.

"Not when they start killing harmless people. They're nothing more than lab rats, it's not their fault."

Skinner snarled, "Don't expect us to buy that, Krycek. You've killed plenty of innocents."

"This was pointless slaughter, Skinner."

"A humanitarian gesture, Krycek? I don't buy it."

He merely shrugged. "I don't care what you do or don't believe about me, Skinner. But we have the same goals here."

"And those would be?"

"Stopping an alien invasion."

"What if one of my goals is roasting your heart on a stick?"

Krycek closed his eyes for a moment and he suddenly looked exactly like a substitute math teacher, halfway through a bad Monday morning. "Let's save the world, then you can have your shot. OK, Skinner?", he said flatly.

Mulder raised his mug to his lips, then noticed that it was empty. He turned and went back to the kitchen, leaving Krycek and Skinner locked in a silent dance of hatred that was too private for witnesses. He was concentrating very hard on pouring the coffee when he felt his partner come up behind him.

"Mulder..."

"I know," he said. "I don't get it, either, Scully. But he was there and..." Mulder stopped, the steam from his coffee curling up to touch his face so gently.

"So you're saying it was simply convenience?" Scully sounded almost hopeful.

"No. I mean, he was *there*, he saw what I saw, what I did..." His eyes closed again and he gulped at his coffee, trying to smell, taste, hear anything that wasn't last night.

"What did you do, Mulder?" Scully asked in a low voice. "What did Krycek see?"

He shook his head, knowing even as he did that she would have to know. Forensics would discover the bullets before long.

There was a growl of pure rage from the living room and the sound of something crashing into the wall. Mulder and Scully boiled out into the living room to see Skinner and Krycek locked in the same stances as before. But the tableau had changed; Skinner's chest was heaving and there was a shattered piece of electronic equipment on the floor behind Krycek.

"Happy now, Skinner?"

"Oh no, boy. That doesn't even begin to even the score." Skinner's voice was the whisper of the glacier making deadly promises to the rock below it.

"But it does level the playing field," Krycek said evenly. "We're all starting from the same place now. We have to trust one another."

"Trust YOU?" Scully's voice had lost its gentle detachment and slid straight into shrill. "You've betrayed everyone in this room, Krycek, why should any of us trust you?"

He simply looked at her and blinked.

The silence became hotter and seemed about to give birth to some kind of violent new life when Mulder said,

"Why should anyone in this room trust anyone else, Scully?"

Her shocked gaze froze and shattered against him. "I'm your *partner*, Mulder. Skinner is your boss. We've stood beside you for years. Krycek is..."

"I know what Krycek is," Mulder cut her off. "You're my partner, Scully." His face softened for a moment. "But you've betrayed me, lied to me, almost gotten me killed..." he stopped, took a step toward her as one tear slid down her face.

"And Skinner." Mulder turned to face his boss. "You've lied to me, betrayed me, nearly gotten me killed...you even had me committed. TWICE." His voice had grown rusty with decayed and hopeless fury. He swallowed, then continued. "Krycek - you've lied to me, betrayed me and nearly gotten me killed, too." He looked back at Scully. "I guess I'm not really seeing much difference here, Scully."

"Mulder..."

He wasn't sure which of the three had spoken in protest and he held up his hand. "I'm no better," he reassured them dully. "I've lied to all of you, put you in terrible danger, betrayed your trust...I got you infected with cancer, Scully, dragged Krycek somewhere they cut off his arm, and painted Skinner into a corner where they had to inject him with nanocytes to control him enough to rein me in. So who's got the moral high ground here, exactly?" Mulder's voice bled away.

They stood, staring at one another across a room stark with sunlight and not a shred of hope, four people frozen in the figures of a dance to which no one knew the steps.

<feedback welcomed at >

 

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Title: "Contras & Squares"  
Author: JiM  
Date: 7/99  
Note: This is #5 in the "Dance" series, following "Invitation to the Dance", "Lobster Quadrille", "Tango" and "Bransle".   
Archive: X/, slash X, all others, please ask.  
Thanks: To Kass, MJ, Anne and Dawn. And to Vee, who first demanded a sequel to a rather short snip. I forgot the muffins AGAIN.  
Feedback:   
Web page: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Metro/4859/JiM.html (Thanks to the talented Mona!)

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"Contras & Squares"  
by JiM

This time, Mulder was the last one back at his apartment. The others had already arrived before him. He was greeted by the sight of Krycek helping Scully to slip off her bullet-proof vest. She shook her hair and then shimmied her shoulders like a tortoise enjoying her first taste of freedom outside her shell. Skinner had his boot off and his jeans leg pulled up and was inspecting a shallow scratch along his calf. They all looked up when he came in and nodded; Scully smiled.

Their raid had been a success, like every other operation they'd planned and executed together in the last month. Krycek brought them information, Skinner had the tactics, Mulder and Scully determined objectives and strategy. They raided labs, stole resources, taped meetings and bugged board rooms, slowly building their stockpile of information and exposure. Their night-time teamwork was tight-lipped and precise.

Mulder, Scully and Skinner went about their daytime routines, unremarkable civil servants causing no particular comment. They did not ask what Krycek did with his days. None of them had ever spoken of that morning in Mulder's apartment when unforgivable truths had been dealt out, losing hands all around. 

A ruthlessly practical camaraderie had grown between them. On an operation, there was never a question of trust or loyalty, no private pain was ever permitted to surface. They did not dance around the issues; in their narrow, shared night-time world, there were no issues. But there was a price to be paid for all of their restraint.

There were no victory dances.

There was only the fierce heat of sex to celebrate their dancing with Death, only the rush and push and howl and spit of being alive. Joy became throttled into need because sex was a much simpler crucible for all that smoldered between them. 

At first, he and Krycek would wait for the others to leave before falling on each other like starving wolves. Then there came a night when it had been too close and they had barely made it into the empty apartment before Krycek had his prosthetic hand wrapped around Mulder's throat and the other down his jeans. When Scully and Skinner made it back, Mulder had already been too far gone to care about the open bedroom door. Alex was a hard, hot length in him and his entire universe had spun down to a bright point of flame. 

Later, wandering naked through his living room, going to get a bottle of water, he'd seen the tangle of limbs on his couch. Scully was half-wrapped around Skinner, protecting his nakedness with her own. Skinner's arms cradled her carefully even in sleep. Mulder had stood and looked at them for long, cool minutes before going and getting a spare blanket to tuck around them. They had slept on, oblivious to his care, as did Krycek. In the morning, he had awakened alone in the apartment. They had none of them ever spoken of it. But now he left blankets and condoms under the couch.

Mulder went into the bathroom to get his first aid kit, which he brought to Skinner, who acknowledged it with a grunt. Mulder nodded back, then went into his bedroom to shuck his own vest and the sweat soaked t-shirt beneath it. He had learned early not to strip off his gear with the rest. Scully's narrowed eyes had traced the marks of Krycek's hands and teeth on his chest and he had felt her gaze run like acid down his skin. Her lip curled at such marks on Krycek's skin and Mulder couldn't take seeing either look in her eyes, so he retreated strategically. 

He heard a whisper of sound behind him, the door being closed. He didn't even bother to turn. Krycek's hand was on his shoulder, gentle, warm and totally alien at this moment. Then he was being turned and Krycek's face was warm against his, nuzzling, caressing him, tender kisses skipping over his jaw and cheek. Mulder felt his head drop back, exposing his throat, felt Krycek begin to trail down it, felt the deep shimmers of wanting begin and he shoved Krycek away.

"No."

"What's wrong?" There was a kind of innocent bewilderment in the green eyes and Mulder was suddenly sickened. 

Of course Krycek was confused -- hadn't Mulder let him do everything he'd wanted? Hadn't that been Mulder moaning against the bricks in that alley two weeks ago? Mulder who had gone down on him in a parked car on a stakeout? Mulder who knew that an operation wasn't really finished until Krycek had left some trace on him, like a man refreshing a brand. Krycek's kisses burned on his skin long after the man himself had faded into the morning sun.

He has seen Scully's eyes lingering on him, afterwards, during the day. He has seen Skinner's gaze, too. They both think that Mulder is somehow the price they must all pay for Krycek's information and his undeniably professional skills. Sometimes, the weight of their eyes hurts too much and he can't look at them. Scully won't believe him when he tells her that it isn't blackmail, that he does not understand his need for Krycek. Skinner has never asked. They simply glare and the uneasy collaboration continues.

"Mulder?" Krycek asked softly and brushed the hair away from his eyes, fingers skimming Mulder's forehead like a whisper. 

Too kind, too gentle, too much like the Krycek who had dried him off and put him to bed the first night this ominous partnership had been born. Mulder wanted to strike out at him, but Skinner and Scully were in the next room. To start a fight would only bring more witnesses to his disintegration. But he struggled anyway, and Krycek clamped his hands reflexively, pinning Mulder to the wall. He jammed a knee between Mulder's legs; the tight grip of Krycek's prosthetic was cutting off the blood to Mulder's right hand and he snarled as he thrashed. Krycek shoved him back again, chest hard and unyielding against Mulder's.

"Is this what you want, Mulder? What you need?" Krycek growled, then bit at the side of the throat he had been lavishing kisses on moments before. 

Mulder's moan of protest only made Krycek switch sides and bite at the muscle on the other side of his neck. Mulder knew he'd have two matched bite-bruises to show the world tomorrow. He thought of the looks that Skinner and Scully would give him and he wanted Krycek to share it, wanted Krycek to feel the weight and constant raw scraping of their pity and guilt.

"They think I'm your whore," he spit into Krycek's open face, inches from his own.

Krycek just arched an eyebrow, then smiled a little bitterly. "Well, they've got that backwards." 

He seemed tired suddenly, as if his words had cost him all of the desperate strength the night's success had left him. His grip on Mulder's wrists loosened and he took a small step back. Then he slowly dropped his head until his forehead rested on Mulder's shoulder. It was such a wounded gesture that Mulder couldn't do anything but bring his arms up to hold Krycek. One arm went around his back, the other rested on the nape of Krycek's neck, stroking lightly at the silky feathers of hair at the edge of his scalp. 

"I don't think I can do this any more, Mulder," Krycek whispered. "I can't be what you want me to be."

Mulder thought for a while. Krycek felt that Mulder was using him ... and paying him in what coin? His arms tightened unconsciously. He knew, he realized. Krycek, who took the blame Mulder gave him, who demanded from Mulder everything that Mulder had always wanted to give, who forced Mulder to do everything Mulder had always burned to do. Krycek, who wore him out again and again to the point where all Mulder had left were gentle touches, meaningless murmurs, thoughtless caresses. 

He'd always known what Alex wanted from him. This, he thought, feeling Alex breathing shakily in his arms. This, he thought, brushing a kiss into the hair that still smelled of gasoline and sweat and the summer night. 

"Ok, Alex," he whispered. "It's Ok, you don't have to do this any more. I get it."

Then he very gently stripped the damp shirt over Alex's head. He unbuttoned Alex's jeans and slid them down along with his briefs, then slipped off the boots and the jeans after them. Then he took Alex's hand and pulled him over to sit on the bed. His fingers were careful and methodical as they unfastened the prosthetic left arm and placed it beside the bed. Alex watched him, a bruised wonder in his eyes, as he pulled back the covers and motioned for Alex to lie down. Mulder slipped in beside him and pulled Alex over to lie on his chest. He felt the other man's sigh hum through him as the bed rippled beneath them.

"Mulder?" Alex asked.

"I get it now," Mulder said softly and ran his fingers down Alex's cheek. 


End file.
